


The Making of Harley Quinn

by rogueofstorms



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Abuse, Abusive BDSM, Asylum, Behavior Modification, Bondage, Coercion, F/M, Mental Coercion, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Movie Spoilers, Power Play, Unhealthy Relationships, shock therapy, unhealthy bdsm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-07-29 17:59:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7694014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueofstorms/pseuds/rogueofstorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into how Dr Harleen Quinzel became Harley Quinn. Based in the Suicide Squad universe, contains movie spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Update Aug 8: Minor edits. If there's any mistakes or missing words that I didn't catch, please let me know!

I never expected it, but then again, no one ever does. Twelve years ago, if you had told me that I would find someone like him, I’d’ve tried to get you admitted as a patient.

But _he_ happened. He made me, broke me down and built me back up - he’s the only one who could ever understand me. I’m hopelessly devoted and you can’t take me away from him. I’m his toy, his doll, _his_ . Who is he, you ask? Why, he’s my puddin’. Mistah J. **_The Joker_ **.

 

* * *

 

I was lucky to get this job, I told myself as I walked the halls down to the room assigned to me for my patients. Not many places will hire a recent grad, even if it was _summa cum laude_ from a prestigious school with a near-perfect GPA for a PhD in Psychology. Hell, not many grads with that history would be willing to work in a place like this either - Arkham was an institution that clearly needed funding.

It was funded just enough to support the kinds of extreme measures needed to keep the inmates from damaging the Institute, themselves, each other, or the doctors. But that’s where all the money went - the wallpaper has seen better days, faded from what must have been considered a bright sunshine yellow to a horrible stale-butter colour. Grime had started to set in on the corners and edges, and for those inmates that weren’t restrained 24/7, their rooms were a mess - and that’s an understatement.

Inmates weren’t here to get better though, not really. The other doctors weren’t paid nearly enough to even care. Inmates were here to be kept out of society and off the streets; most of them had been personally dropped off by the Batman himself. Now _there’s_ a case that I’d love to work  - you don’t turn out like that with a normal childhood, let me tell you. I had written a thesis proposal on the Batman, but my advisor turned it down - didn’t want to piss off the wrong people, he told me, the Batman was too politically volatile just now.

The patients at Arkham were pieces of work themselves though. Most of them had been direct antagonists of Batman, some even going so far as to call him out personally. But nothing beat the Joker, as he called himself. Arkham didn’t even have a name on record for him. Our first session was mostly silence, first from me as I studied him and his reactions to me.

The Joker had sat still for a while as I looked at his green hair - did he dye it? Why did they let someone as criminally insane as him have chemicals? - his pale skin marred only by a series of tattoos. I’m sure there were more where I couldn’t see them, but asking would be completely inappropriate. Eventually, the silence got to him and he started talking, started trying to get a reaction out of me. Insulted everything from my name to my glasses to the cut of my clothes. I knew better than to react, of course, it’s nearly Psychology 101 for dealing with patients.

As our sessions continued, though, I felt I could see underneath the insanity to the man behind the sharp cheekbones and square jawline. He’d tattooed the word “damaged” on his forehead in what must have been a pique of self-awareness that he normally didn’t otherwise possess - I spent a whole month’s worth of sessions working with him on that. I had, by this time, forgotten the golden rule of dealing with criminal patients: Don’t let them become human. I’d failed that rule when I decided to call him Mister J, instead of the Joker - his lack of a true name had bothered me, you see. And I had forgotten that he was a sociopath.

The cycle started when I was out shopping on a day off. The cutest little cat toy was in those impulse bins in the local supermarket and all I could think was “Mister J would like this”. So I picked it up, and brought it to my next session with Mister J.

“I picked something up for you,” I told Mister J.

“A present? For me?” he replied, his voice lilting at the end like it always did, as though something I’d said was funny.

“I thought you’d like it,” I said. I pulled the small cat out of my pocket and it flopped comically in my hand. It even had little bitty whiskers!

Mister J inclined his head in the way that I knew meant “Thank You”, since he wasn’t one to actually say it. The rest of the session continued as normal, but I knew I’d managed to crack into the heart of the beast with my gift. I could see that Mister J was in fact human, that he had a heart and needed someone to care.

“You’re the only one who gets me, Harleen,” he told me once.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing here, I wonder?” a few sessions later.

Soon the gifts became more frequent to him, and the flirting, oh the flirting. How I’d longed to have someone say the things Mister J said. It was like he somehow knew my innermost desires and thoughts.

We almost kissed once, even with the guard watching. I’d been turning my head and realised we were watched - the look on Mister J’s face tore my heart. The aborted kiss though, led to requests for gifts from Mister J. He’d ask for a magazine, or for a message to be passed out to his best pal, or another cat, and we’d talk about the dates he would take me on if he weren’t in Arkham. Our sessions became an escape, and I looked forward to them more every day.

By the time he asked for me to bring him a machine gun, I was hopelessly lost. In the process of figuring out how to get him one, I’d managed to arrange a breakout through the messages I was passing for him, though I didn’t know it at the time.

It took the Institute by storm. Men (or women?) in crazy animal suits - a panda mascot, a tiger mask, one guy even wore a halloween-costume Batman face! - stormed Arkham with guns to break Mister J out of his sentence.

Had they known, even then, what I would become? The minions took my office, with me in it, and escorted me to the therapy room. Some of the longer-term psychologists reserved this room since it was mostly for electroshock therapy - something I hadn’t thought necessary with Mister J.

They strapped me down to the table and I was terrified. Many of the inmates had no reason to love us doctors, and killing me would be completely in line with the behaviour profiles we had on most of them. But instead of starting to play with the other therapy instruments, the inmates and outsiders who had taken me just stood there, waiting.

They were waiting for Mister J. He’d removed the Arkham-provided shirt that I was used to seeing him in, and now I could see all of the tattoos on his torso. His very muscular torso - there must have been something wrong even then, for me to be attracted to the sociopath who called himself the Joker. Mister J pulled on a pair of purple latex gloves, letting the latex snap against his wrists.

“How nice to see you again, Doctor Harleen Quinzel,” Mister J purred as he looked down on me. Something in me stirred and I liked it, despite the clear danger.

“What are you going to do, kill me?” I asked him, defiance in my voice.

“Oh no, Harleen. Oh no.” Mister J smiled his silver smile - although really I think his teeth had been filled in with either white gold or platinum - and he moved around to stand behind my head. A wheeled cart moved somewhere behind me and stopped near where I estimated Mister J to be standing.

“I’m just going to cause you a lot of... _pain_ ,” Mister J said.

“I can take it.” I caught a brief glimpse of the electroshock terminals before I blacked out.

 

* * *

 

“Why are you doing this?”

“You’re the only one who understands me,” Mister J said in my ear. The pain started.

It stopped.

“You’ll be my queen, you see. You’ll love me and want me and _need_ me.”

Pain.

No pain.

More words.

Pain. No pain. Love, want, need. Desire. Understand. Harlequin. Queen. Pain. No pain.

“Who do you belong to?” the male voice purred. Something in me wanted to kiss that voice.

“WHAT THE FUCK.”

“Wrong answer.”

Pain. No pain. Pain. No pain. The Joker. Mister J. Mistah J? Harlequin queen. Pain. No pain. Lovewantneed. Surrender.

“Who do you belong to?” the purr was back.

“You,” I said, breathless and full of want.

“Good answer,” he said. A hand pulled my jaw, my face - I had a face still! - up and my lips were kissed violently. God I wanted this. He bit my lip and I moaned. I bit back.

“Ah-ah-ah,” the voice cautioned me. “Not yet, my pet.”

Pet? Painpainpain. No pain. Where was the voice?

“I’m doing this for you, you know,” Mister J was back. “You’re the only who... _understands_ me, _gets_ me.”

He kissed me. Pain. What? More kisses, sweet and soft. Pain. Kiss, pain. Kiss, pain. Kiss, pain. Again and again until pain and pleasure were so wrapped up together that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Maybe they were never meant to be apart. Just like me and Mister J.

Again and again and again and again and again, until...  
  
Pain. "Do it again," I laughed. Mister J laughed with me, a flat sarcastic Ha-Ha-Ha that made me giggle harder. He shocked me as we laughed and if I hadn't been tied down I would have collapsed into a pile of giggles and love.  
  
"I think we're done here," he said, and untied the restraints and scooped me up into his arms in a bridal carry.

 

* * *

 

Months since the breakout and Mister J and I had been living the dream. He was so sweet and understanding - the only one who could ever hope to understand me. If I had friends before Arkham they had clearly stopped caring - after all, not a single one thought to call me to see if I was okay, and what kind of friend doesn’t care? They could all rot in hell. The only one I needed anymore was Mister J, _my_ Mister J.

He didn’t let me come with him to his work - he couldn’t trust me yet, you see. It was too soon after the breakout, too soon since we found each other. I understood, of course. He was feeling insecure after having been locked away for so long.

Mister J made good on the dates we had once discussed, though. He wined and dined me like a queen and I had to wonder where the money came from. We went to nightclubs and I learned how to tease him into a fury, until that purr became a growl, and the growl became bites and hurried journeys back to my place before we tore each others clothes off.

It took a while, but eventually I was able to prove myself. I hadn’t been working - how could I when my job had gone up in flames? Who would hire me, knowing that I had assisted in the worst Arkham breakout in a decade?

Mister J was my world, now. He introduced me as his Girl at the club he ran, to his business partners and minions. There’d be times where I would bite a finger _just so_ and he’d make his purring-growl that got me hot and we’d have to go up to his office to get it out of our systems just so he could do his business downstairs.

The dates got better as time went on. We’d started easy with things like nice dinners, a night dancing, and gradually worked our way into pushing each other into doing more and more interesting things to prove our devotion. It all culminated in a date to a chemical factory.

I hadn’t known that my Mister J was such a scientist - the he’d been a chemist, once upon a time. His knowledge of the chemicals being stored and made there astounded me and I swooned and fell for him all over again. There was no one else like my Mister J in the whole world.

We stood two floors up from the chemical vats, looking down and promising each other the world.

“Would you die for me?” Mister J asked. We’d played this game for months now, I knew the answer here.

“Yes,” I replied, no hesitation. Mister J was everything, of course I’d die if meant he would live.

“No, too easy,” he said. “Would you _live_ for me?”

A harder question for sure. Mister J looked down at the chemicals and my gaze followed his. He was wearing a gold jacket over a white top, looking sexy as hell compared to my dumpy outfit for the night - a blue three-quarter sleeve top with skinny jeans and boots, and my ever-present glasses.

“Yes,” I breathed, as our eyes locked again. He brought a hand up along my jaw, placed fingers behind my left ear and pulled me close into him. The kiss was lightning and fire and I knew what he was going to ask me to do. This was where he had become the Joker all those years ago, after all.

“Don’t promise this lightly,” he cautioned me, still holding me in close.

I nodded.

“Desire become surrender, surrender becomes power,” he said all in one breath. I shut my eyes and memorised the phrase.

Mister J said it again, faster this time, and looked down at the vats below us.

“Desire becomes surrender, surrender becomes power,” I said. Mister J took a step back from the edge as I handed him my glasses. I shrugged out of my coat, paused on the edge, and made the leap.

The seconds of air time felt like an eternity before I hit the liquid in the vat and sank down. My next memory is of a kiss of life - Mister J had dived in after me and pulled me back to the surface.

We laughed and laughed as we floating in the vat, playing with the red and blue pigments that fell from my clothes.

“Who am I?” My Mister J asked me.

“You’re my puddin’, puddin’,” I giggled.

He growled. “And _you’re_ my Harley Quinn, my queen.”

And that’s when the real fun started.

 

* * *

 

My favourite game, aside from the usual good cop/bad cop we played with during bank heists and teasing the overgrown Bat, was the game we’d play with people who needed favours from Mistah J.

I would dance for Mistah J in the gilded cage he’d built for me - both real and metaphorical, I hadn’t lost my mind you see, just my filters, haha~

I’d dance and wriggle and writhe and Mistah J would just sit there, hands resting on a purple cane he’d picked up from the last idiot, a possessive gleam in his eyes that made me want to run my hands through his green hair and take him right there in the golden booth he used as his watching-Harley-Quinn office.

His gaze always spurred me to extremes, since I wasn’t allowed to play with him while he was doing business. I’d take another of the dancers he had hired for the club, and dance with her until all three of us were hot and bothered. And then I’d kiss the girl and let my hands wander and finally she’d be too worked up to keep dancing so I would stop. Mistah J didn’t like it when I distracted the girls too much - I was _his_ and the rest were just cheap plastic toys, after all.

Inevitably, one of the many favour-seeking fools would join Mistah J in the booth, and that’s when the game began. I’d do my best to distract the poor fellow, running my hands up and down my body suggestively, borrowing another dancer and playing Russian Hands over her outfit, always making sure that the fool could see exactly what I was doing.

My blonde hair with its red and blue tips would fall over my now-pale face and I’d bite my lips and the idiots never could keep their mouths shut. God help anyone who disrespected Mistah J’s Queen, in his house of swords.They’d call me Mistah J’s hoe, a bitch, a sex kitten, and they wouldn’t even realise what they’d done until it was too late. Mistah J would whistle - I lived for that whistle, just as I lived for his kiss and his eyes and his hands and his, well, everything.

The whistle was a summons, and like a good Harley I’d slither out of my gilded cage and over the stage, through the golden beaded curtain until I’d found Mistah J. He’d kiss me fiercely, pulling me close and biting and purring. The idiots would stammer and try to apologise, but it was already too late. The really stupid ones wouldn’t even try, they’d just watch me with hot eyes and a needy cock.

“She’s yours,” Mistah J would tell them. “For the night, if you want her.” That was my cue to come on strong to the fool. I’d get up real close, breathe on their ears until they shivered, pushing the limits until Mistah J was having trouble controlling himself from the jealousy of seeing me like this with another man. Mistah J would direct his anger at the fool, and that’s when the jaws of the trap would clench shut.

They’d apologise profusely, then, stammering about how they hadn’t realised that I was Mistah J’s, and they’d never meant to say what they’d said. But they’d already said it, see? And once the words leave your mouth it’s too late.

The club was always loud enough to mask the sound of the gunshot when Mistah J put the fools out of their misery.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, doll,” Mistah J said from behind me. He knows it drives me crazy(er, hahaha) when he sneaks up on me like that. His arms came around to hug me to him, and I twisted around until I could plant a big smacker right on his lips. He grinned into me and I into him.

“You bored, doll?”

“I could use a little more fun, puddin’.”

“Good girl,” Mistah J petted my hair. “Let’s take a date.”

I clapped my hands with glee as a big grin lights up my face - a match for the smile he’s tattooed onto the back of his left hand. “A date! A date! What’re we gonna do this time, Mistah J?”

Mistah J put a finger against my lips to silence me. Oops - I was being bad again and not letting him finish, wasn’t I? I shut my mouth.

“It’s a surprise, my dear,” he said, and grabbed my hand to tug me along behind him. I skipped a little as I followed, excited to be going out again. It felt like it had been _ages_ since we last did something.

“We’re taking the car?” I asked, surprised.

“Shh, pet.” Mistah J growled and made as if to nip me, and I turned my eyes to the floor in response. He didn’t trust anyone to bring the car around, so taking it was always special.

We stopped next to the purple beauty. The same shade of purple as the cane he had taken to carrying, the metallic eggplant glinted in the dim light of the garage. Mistah J walked me to the passenger side and opened the door with a little bow, gentleman that he is. The white leather enticed me inside with its smell and I sank gratefully into the passenger seat and blew a kiss at Mistah J when he shut the door.

He waited just long enough to make me nervous about whether or not we would really go on the date before he got into the car with me. My trusty hammer was in the back from where we’d left it last time.

We made out for a bit before Mistah J revved the engine and we tore screaming and laughing out of the garage underneath the club. Speed limits were for losers, and we spent a good hour dodging and weaving around Gotham City traffic before Mistah J drove the car through a storefront.

“A jewlery store? Mistah J, ya shouldn’t’ve!” I bounced out of the car, taking my hammer with me to smash through the display cabinets. Mistah J exited more slowly, looking for all the world like a rich man on a pleasure trip - which he was, of course, just not the kind of trip that the likes of Bruce Wayne would be taking.

“Hurry doll, before the alarms bring the vermin in,” he warned me. I stopped cavorting and grabbed piles of gold and diamond-studded bracelets and necklaces. We’d sort through them later, laughing and kissing, in the club.

Sirens in the distance meant it was time to go, and Mistah J gave me slap on my ass to hurry me into the car. The tires squealed as we reversed out of the storefront and back into the streets. It was mostly just us and the police at this hour, so Mistah J took full advantage to weave all over the roads as we sped away.All too soon, though, we heard the sirens fall away. I poked my head out the window to see if we’d really lost them and saw that we had in fact lost the police, but gained a bat instead.

“Any news, doll?” Mistah J asked.

“Bats in the belfry, puddin’,” I said.

Mistah J slammed the steering wheel as we took a turn - the Batman following all the way. The situation was so absurd, I couldn’t help but laugh, delighted to be out with my puddin’.

The Batman kept pace with us, getting close enough to jump onto the car as we neared the docks. Mistah J wasn’t stopping, and I started to panic.

“Mistah J, turn!”

“Mistah J!”

I could see the waterfront ahead.

“Mistah J, I can’t swim!”

“I CAN’T SWIM!!”

The car hit the water and the Batman disengaged. I was flung forwards into the windshield and turned to find Mistah J, but I must have blacked out.

 

* * *

 

Three months I’d been in prison now. At first I had a normal cell just like everyone else except the special cases. And then I managed to trick a guard into trying to fuck me and killed him with his own stunner. I got max security for that one, but it wasn’t enough to stop my games, ahahaha.

Life was so boring without Mistah J though.

After a few more “incidents” as they liked to call them, I got my own special prison area. Not a cell, oh no, not a cell. They put me in a cage - just like Mistah J did! - but I didn’t get pretty clothes or gilded bars this time. The room must be thirty feet if not more on each side, with a catwalk above and a reinforced solid steel door for an entrance. The catwalk is protected by an electrified fence - oh what fun it was to figure that one out! Just like old times, it was.

I kept getting out of the steel cage they had put me in the middle of the room, so it wasn’t long before they took away most of my privileges. No more bed, no more bedsheets, no more pillow even, cause I kept making long ropes out of them and using the ropes to swing around the cage.

When I managed to get a guard to let me out for a hot minute - of kissing, but he’d never get farther, oh no, Mistah J wouldn’t like that at all, I snapped his neck with my legs and laughed for the pleasure of the kill.

They electrified the cage itself then. I dunno who told them that using shock as reinforcement against behavior problems would work, but whoever it was clearly hadn’t read my file. Didn’t they know I was a masochist by now? Didn’t they know that Mistah J and I had done far worse to each other just playing around?

Well, if they didn’t know, I sure wasn’t going to tell ‘em, haha~

If I was really lucky, sometimes I could get a guard to try and touch the bars while they were running hot, but that game stopped when they mandated that guards weren’t allowed actually inside my cage area - they could only monitor from the catwalk, except for food times and other special occasions.

Mistah J managed to get a guy into position though as my “head” guard. The one guard that the prison though they could one-hundred-percent trust around me. Oh how we’d flirt and joke. Mistah J must have told him to do it, cause the guard would always get the bars turned on.

Oh sweet delicious pain. I’d hiss and pull back, and then run for the bars and hope for oblivion where I could be with Mistah J again, at least until he came for me.

 

* * *

 

Midway.

I decided that I don’t like Midway, even if it did net me an espresso machine and a bed and books in my steel electric cage.

I’d lost Mistah J.

Oh, I put up a strong face, wore the mask of who I’d been - strong, confident, sexy as hell, puttin’ the beat down on those freaky things the witch made.

But my Mistah J was gone. Damn near a whole month before I stopped pining and started to enjoy my steel cage - almost as much as I’d enjoyed my gilded one. Who cared if Mistah J was gone - he may have made me, but I could be my own person too, right? After all, I’d been an individual a long time before Mistah J fixed me.

I was sitting on my bed, drinking espresso from the adorable little espresso cup and readings the latest harlequin romance the warden had seen fit to give me - some Molly O’Keefe novel.

And then - BOOM. The wall behind me was blown and the guards began to run around like chickens. The explosion nearly made me spill my espresso, so I stood and got ready to give a good beatin’ to whoever tried that on me.

Men in black SWAT suits ran in through the hole in the wall, guns up and killing the guards as they poured in. The leader of the group didn’t even carry a gun; he had a portable grinder with him. All the men on the team had gas masks on - it must have been for the explosion, but they hadn’t taken them off yet.

I saw why as the leader spun up the grinder and began to power through the lock on my cage. When the last sparks flew, the grinder was flung away and the door pushed open. The leader pushed through into my cage and ripped the gas mask from his face.

It was Mistah J!

I bounced forward to greet my puddin’ and gave him a big ol’ smooch right then and there.

“So you missed me, doll?”

“More than you’ll know, Mistah J!”

And we two fools in motley led the parade out of the prison to where our ride was waiting for us - and this time, it wouldn’t be shot down at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Joker demanded his half of the story too, so here it is! :)

Arkham had been so boring lately. My toys broke too quickly, soon replaced by newer models spouting the same bullshit.

“Do you regret what you’ve done?” they’d ask. “What were your parents like? Were you abused as a child?” and so on.  _ God _ , how  _ boring _ they got after a while. 

I’d been in and out of Arkham plenty over the past years, mostly thanks to the overgrown flying rodent that haunted Gotham City. At first it had been the pinnacle of psychiatric technology - top-of-line psychologists and psychiatrists, rehab doctors, facilities that shone with  _ clean _ . Then, as all cities do when the corrupt are at the head -  _ god  _ how I love corrupt cities - funding was cut for rehab programs. Oh, we criminally insane still got placed here, after all,  _ we weren’t in our right minds _ and couldn’t play nice with regular prison inmates.

The wallpaper and paint cracked and peeled, amenities were left to rot, just like the rest of us. After a while, Arkham couldn’t afford to hire the nice doctors with their shiny tools and multiple degrees. And so we were left with fresh meat, new graduates barely out of school, and  _ oh _ what  _ fun _ they were to play with.

It got so bad that anyone assigned to me had to take a psych exam just to ensure that I wouldn’t be able to  _ twist _ them into becoming inmates themselves. So disappointing - I barely even had to  _ try  _ most days before they  _ cracked _ and ran gibbering. Ha ha ha.

This week’s toy was a cut above the previous ones - newer, shinier, and with more  _ heart _ . Blonde hair waved down to either side of a pale skinned face - not as pale as mine, ha. Black-framed glasses, a hint of lipstick, but casual professional wear under the Arkham-required labcoat - this was a woman who didn’t  _ understand _ what she was dealing with here.

Interesting, though, since Arkham had stopped giving me the women years ago - too easy to  _ break _ you see. The first session that I had her was my  _ test _ to see if she was worth  _ breaking _ . This one was different.

She sat in silence, studying me as I studied her. Ten, then fifteen minutes, and still she hadn’t said anything. Why hadn’t she said anything? They  _ always _ try to make me talk. The silence began to press on me as it usually only did in my tiny solitary cell.

Too long. Too quiet. The silence gained volume and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouted and screamed at the woman. Called her vile, whore, bitch, cunt, pussy, weak, easy, slut, and so on. Anything to get a reaction. Anything to fill the silence. 

She raised an eyebrow and made a note in her little binder, then walked out.

_ Bitch _ .

The next time I had time with her I learned her name. Doctor Harleen Quinzel. Nice  _ ring _ to it.

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” I asked her. She flushed as I studied her and I smirked. It was only a matter of time now.

The months passed and I found myself looking forward to sessions with Harleen. Her life was so... _ interesting _ in its mundanity. She went out with friends, she fought with her parents, she dated and got dumped, she moped in her apartment. She confided in me, and I, in turn, gave a seeming of confiding in her.

She grew more confident in talking to me, more  _ sure _ that I was no threat. I  _ let _ her believe that. I stayed calm when she was around, and it wasn’t long before she petitioned for a lifting of certain  _ restrictions _ on me due to “good behaviour”. I was allowed gifts, provided they were approved by the higher-ups at Arkham, and allowed to make one phone call every three months to someone outside.

I used it to contact the man I’d left in charge of my empire should anything happen to me. 

I used Quin _ zel _ to pass more frequent messages outside. “I miss my friends,” I’d tell her, “could you tell them something for me?” Such a  _ naïve _ little doctor she was then. 

I knew I was getting to her the first time she brought me a something that I hadn’t requested. The assigned session that day started with a present - she had brought me a small stuffed toy shaped like a cat.

“I  _ appreciate _ this, I really do,” I told her. She smiled, and I smiled back, pleased my plan was working at last. “I appreciate  _ you _ ,” I continued, and she blushed faintly.

She didn’t  _ know _ it yet, but that was the  _ moment  _ she became  _ mine _ . My new toy to play with. How long would it take, I wondered, to  _ push _ her over the edge. 

I started asking for gifts from her. A magazine here, a book there. Nothing that would raise  _ suspicion _ with her bosses. Messages went in and out between me and my people, and plans were made. Months later, it was time to close the curtain on my latest stay at Arkham, and so I asked her to get something for me.

“Anything,” she replied before she had a chance to think about what she was saying.

“I need a machine gun,” I said. Her pupils dilated comically.

“I - I’ll see what I can do,” said Harleen. The session ended early that day, and I spent the afternoon laughing to myself until the guards were sent in to gag me. The next month was spent sending messages to coordinate my minions’ efforts, and flirting with Harleen. Something about her just  _ sang _ to me, and I caught glimpses of the woman she could be if I  _ twisted _ just  _ so _ .

Shouts alerted me to my impending breakout and I laughed and laughed until my second - wearing a Batman Halloween costume, oh the  _ irony _ \- released me from my restraints.

“Find Doctor Harleen Quinzel,” I ordered him. I had  _ plans _ for the woman.

* * *

Pulling out her inner psychopath was like pulling taffy. Find the hints of it - her willingness to  _ bend _ the rules of Arkham from the beginning, the way she  _ described _ what she wanted to do to her ex-lovers. It warmed my cold  _ heart _ to hear her vindictive plans to eviscerate one and leave him out on a rooftop, to drive another insane by sending junk mail in bulk to his mailbox until he screamed for relief from the deluge, to ruin one’s career by making obscene phone calls.

And then she’d apologise to me for being so  _ mean _ \- “I’m sorry Mister J, you know I wouldn’t do things like that, I’m a good person, but they just make me so  _ angry _ .”

Pain was the key, as always. She told me “I can take it” as I borrowed the machinery in the “Therapy Room” to begin the process.

Pain until she can’t think straight, then tender caresses and words.

“You’ll be a queen to me,” I told her softly, petting the frizz from her hair. 

“Remember Mister Kitty?” I asked. I picked up the first stuffed cat toy she’d brought me and made tiny cat noises until she giggled.

“Mister Kitty wants you to be good for Mister J.”

“My harlequin girl,” I called her once when she was pulled close in to me, her back against my chest as we sat on the floor of the Therapy Room. Harleen giggled and tilted her head back to look at my face. Something in me was struck by the sudden  _ urge _ to run my fingers along the shape of her face, and my light touch had her shivering.

I wanted to  _ keep _ her. But that wasn’t the  _ plan _ \- I was going to see what it took to  _ break _ her, and when she broke she would do anything for me. Even if that was jumping off a building. And then I would find a new  _ toy _ to break.

* * *

More than a week of alternating pain and softness, keeping Harleen from sleeping more than two or three hours a day. I was so  _ sure _ that this would be enough to destroy her.

And  _ pleasantly _ surprised when it didn’t.

I released her back to her life, to see what she would do. After a week, I found that I  _ missed _ her. I had a man tail her and report on what she did; Harleen  _ sat _ in her apartment and moped, and wrote in a journal.

I had a man steal the journal and discovered that she missed me as well. That she missed the game I’d been playing with her during my takeover of Arkham. That she had  _ ideas _ and  _ dreams _ about doing  _ things _ with me, things that weren’t fit for the polite company she was so desperately trying to reintegrate with.

My man reported that the friends she had told me about didn’t talk to her anymore, didn’t check up on her. Her  _ family _ was out of the picture. No one would  _ miss  _ her.

I sent her a letter, an honest-to-god post office letter with a stamp and everything. “Dear Harley,” it read, “I know you have gone back to your life now, full of friends and events. I’ve been keeping busy too, but somehow it’s not the same without our little chats. I’ve included a phone that you can use to call me if you find the time. Yours, Mister J.”

She called me that night, and we talked and  _ talked _ . How to get her to  _ want _ me, I wondered. A date would be a nice start.

I took her to nice dinner, and we went back to her place after and kept talking.

I brought her to a casino that I owned a  _ controlling _ interest in and we laughed the night away as I taught her poker.

I took her to the movies, and we went to her place after.

“Why don’t we ever go to your place, Mister J?” she asked.

“It isn’t safe for you,” I said, and tapped her nose with a finger.

“I can handle myself,” she retorted, eyes flashing indignantly. 

“Not with my  _ people _ ,” I replied. They would  _ tear _ her apart and break her beyond  _ saving _ . Is this what  _ concern _ felt like? I found myself worried for Harleen, away from me.

A new nightclub opened and we spent the night dancing, and I learned that other  _ parts _ of me could care for Harleen too. That night after the club I put a  _ collar _ around her throat and tied her to the bed. 

It became a  _ game _ we played, soon - how long before one of us tormented the other into  _ want _ and  _ need _ . How long before the only way to keep myself under control was to handcuff her hands together, the only way to keep her biting retaliation at bay was to gag her.

The phone calls became daily, then more than daily as I drove her  _ desire _ to new heights. We moved to text, under the pretense that I was too busy to keep picking up the phone.

She understood of course; she always understood. She never pried about my business, and after a few months of my people harassing me about the phone calls and texts, I decided to bring her by the club I owned and worked out of.

Harleen hung off my arm like the best escorts and I made it clear that this was  _ mine _ . My men understood, of course. No one messed with the Joker’s things.

Batman noticed and followed Harleen one night. She called me, sounding scared, because she felt like she’d been followed, and when she had turned quickly to catch sight of her stalker, only a flutter of cape could be found.

I broke half the mirrors in my club. She was  _ mine _ , the Bat couldn’t  _ have _ her, I  _ needed _ her here  _ now _ .

Our next date, I told her, would be super special. If she still wanted me when the night was over, she could come back with me and move out of her apartment. She jumped at the chance, as she’d later jump for me.

I picked her up myself in my  _ deliciously _ purple Lambo. She looked at me with eyes that asked questions that she wouldn’t voice - she  _ trusted _ me to be her man, to be right and safe and  _ good _ .

I took her to a chemical factory I’d been eyeing for a while as a place to  _ make _ or break my harlequin. Similar to the one I had once worked in, before the  _ bat _ changed me. The basement floor held the vats of experimental chemicals - acids, bases, mixtures. I noticed a label that indicated they were experimenting with liquid laughing gas and made a note to check up on that later.

We wandered the halls and talked, with Harleen occasionally poking her head out over the ledges that overlooked the vats of chemicals below. No catwalks or walkways over these chemicals - the fumes alone were likely corrosive. I stopped our meandering on the third level overlook and we spoke quietly for a while. 

We’d been playing a game of questions since the beginning, trying to ask each other things that would stump the other. Tonight would be the big test. 

“Would you  _ die _ for me?” I asked her.

“Yes,” Harleen said with confidence. 

“No, too easy,” I said. And it had been. She had proven that over and over again since Arkham. “Would you... _ live _ , for me?”

Harleen paused for a moment. Had I won, I wondered? Harleen closed her eyes briefly before looking directly into mine.

“Yes,” she said in a soft breath. Her eyes looked soft; almost as though she  _ really  _ cared. I looked down at the chemical vats and she followed my lead. Time for the  _ test _ .

“Careful,” I told her. “Do not promise this lightly.” I paused for a beat, then, “Desire becomes surrender, surrender becomes  _ power _ ,” I said in a single breath.

Harleen looked at me with big doe eyes. A look I only usually got after the  _ knives _ came out and she was helpless beneath my cock and blades.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Pretty pretty pretty pretty,” I led her response.

“ _ Please _ ,” she begged.  _ Oh _ how I loved when she  _ begged _ . Few things were sweeter in the world, lately. I looked back down at the vats, and could see that she understood what was being asked of her, of my harlequin.

She repeated the phrase from earlier, the  _ promise _ , and removed her glasses. I held them as she backed up to the edge of the overlook, then watched as she tilted herself backwards to fall for the vat immediately below us. I waited to see if the acid I knew that vat held would burn or not.

Harleen didn’t surface.  _ Shit _ . I’d grown used to her company, to having her around, to the jealous stares of my men and envious looks of the women who worked for the club. Used to our  _ talks _ and our  _ games _ .

_ Fuck _ . Harleen still hadn’t come back up. I let out a growl of frustration as I stepped away from the ledge and stripped off my dinner jacket.

I checked once more just in case, and when I still didn’t see my harlequin I dove in after her. The acid was more viscous than expected and helped to slow my fall. It also made it easier to pick out the feel of Harleen’s skin as opposed to the acid. I pulled her to the surface and began to breathe for her.

Harleen came to with a gasp and looked at me with such devotion that I knew then that I would never need to doubt her loyalty. We laughed for long minutes before I realised that the acid may have damaged more than just her clothes. She might be alive, but irretrievably lost to me.

“Who am I?” I asked her.

“You’re my puddin’, puddin’.” she said with a giggle. A petname from a game that we had played nearly a year prior, in which she managed to get the drop on me and tie me down. She covered me in some odd flavoured pudding and when she licked it off me I nearly lost myself right then. “Puddin’” became our little joke, just as she was my little monster.

“And  _ you’re _ my Harley Quinn, my Queen,” I replied.

I led her to one of the emergency showers that we had passed earlier to rinse off - no point in ruining my car, after all.

* * *

Harley  _ had _ been damaged by the acid - her hair was pale bleached blonde, her skin paler than a Batman under his  _ fucking _ cape, her eyes brighter blue. And her mind, oh her  _ mind _ \- it was possible that she was crazier than I, now. And I  _ loved _ it. I  _ burned _ for her, and she for me, and everyone that worked for me knew it.

The people who came begging me for favours, or clemency, or to apologise for past transgressions, did not.

She dealt with the first couple of  _ idiots _ herself - giggled as she shredded one man’s balls with her fingernails, bashed another’s head in with a large wooden mallet she’d found in the kitchen. After that, we made a game of it, to mimic the games we played with each other. 

If they showed interest in her, they became hers to handle. If they rejected her, I shot them.

She would  _ dance _ like the strippers I’d hired, sometimes even with the strippers, and when a  _ business _ partner commented on her, I’d introduce her as “The Infamous Harley Quinn” and whistle for her. Harley would flounce over, and that’s when the  _ game _ started.

Meetings were cancelled after one of those  _ games _ as I reasserted that she was  _ mine _ ,  _ my _ Harley, and  _ only _ mine.

* * *

For our ten year anniversary - we always marked these to the date of the chemical factory - I surprised my Harley. Left her bored and curious, then offered to take her out in the purple Lambo.

A new jeweler had opened up in my part of Gotham and neglected to pay his Joker tax, which meant he was fair game. Harley loved the gold and glittery things, so this would be the perfect night out. I rammed the car through the front doors and she looted the store to her heart’s content, stopping only when I reminded her of the alarm.

We sped off down the streets, and her giggles made a pretty counterpoint to my flat laughter. The roar of an engine we both knew well sounded behind us.

“Any news, doll?” I asked. Harley poked her head out the window to check.

“Bats in the belfry, puddin’,” she replied, and the chase was on. The  _ fucking _ batmobile gave chase and we evaded with ease. I thought furiously of how to lose the bat and slammed my fist against the steering wheel.

The bat didn’t give up easily, which called for extreme measures. I steered us towards the wharf, intending to lose him in the shipping containers, and the backup plan of ditching the car and running off with Harley.

He stayed on us and jumped onto the Lambo when the batmobile couldn’t maneuver properly through the docks. Backup plan it was, then. I aimed the car for the water.

“Mistah J, I can’t swim!!” Harley screamed hysterically as we hit the water. Ten years together and I hadn’t fixed the one thing that had me worried when she dove into acid for me.  _ Shit _ . I’d have to come back for her - the Batman always  _ dropped _ the crooks he caught at Gotham City Penitentiary, which meant it should be  _ child’s _ play for Harley to break out or for me to break  _ her _ out.

* * *

Two weeks later, Harley still hadn’t been seen or heard. My plants in the prison said she’d never been booked, and I fell into a cycle of despair and plotting. Obsessive behaviours I hadn’t had a problem with since before Arkham resurfaced and I found myself arranging our knife collection in patterns on the floor of my living room.

A sound at the door had me sat up with a cocked gun in hand and pointed at groin height for whoever was stupid enough to walk in on me. It was my second.

“Where is she?” I growled at him and lowered the gun.

“There’s a new system,” he said. “If you’re a bad enough crook, they don’t just send you to jail no more. They stamp ‘Terrorist’ on your jacket and send you to a blacksite - some backwater swamp in Louisiana.”

“Get a man inside, and get me  _ everything _ on this blacksite,” I ordered my second.

He left.

“I’m comin’ for ya, doll,” I said to image of Harley I’d taped to the ceiling.

My second and I plotted and  _ planned _ , found the people in charge and  _ bribed _ those we could. One month in, I got a man inside the prison they’d taken my Harley to. Couldn’t give the game away yet, so I asked him to look out for her, make sure they treated her right in that swamp.

* * *

Four months after I’d lost my Quinn, my inside man was in position to pass messages. I sent a purple phone to Harley with a message already on it - “I’m coming for you” it said.

“Can’t wait,” she wrote back.

They’d put her on some taskforce of criminals, my inside man passed word, taken them all to some secret location to help with an issue. He also mentioned that the group had been implanted with a new type of explosive leash.  _ That _ would have to  _ go _ .

Midway had been in the news yesterday - some kind of explosion, a terrorist plot the news anchors claimed. A spy in the government, who thought she was passing information to Gotham PD, sent detailed information on the leash, and what had been done to the taskforce.

I had a window of 24 hours to collect Harley Quinn. 

“Get geared up!” I roared at my men as they lounged in the club. 

“What’s doin’, boss?” my second asked.

“We’re getting the Queen back. You know the drill - masks, guns, and tons of firepower!”

We took the computer scientist responsible for the leashes second - first had been their loved ones, to ensure cooperation. Then we all piled into a van and gunned it for Midway.

We ignored the brilliant blue-and-black beam in the sky and commandeered a helicopter that had just finished it’s takeoff protocols. It had been headed right for where the scientist said Harley Quinn was, so we maintained course, pretending to be the military whose helicopter it was.

I made the scientist disable Harley’s leash before I sprayed bullets out of the loading ramp to keep the rest of the taskforce behind cover as we hovered next to the rooftop of an office building. 

“Now,” I texted Harley Quinn. I watched as she stood from behind an air conditioning unit and trusted my men to fire away from her. Glorious she was as she walked calmly down a catwalk towards me. She jumped for the rope I dangled down and twisted herself up securely in it.

Harley made it up the rope and I kissed her like a man starved. Somehow she’d been given one of her old outfits to wear, a hot thing in red and blue, and was wearing the Puddin collar I’d bought her for our fifth anniversary.

When the helicopter was shot out of the sky moments later and Harley Quinn fell out of my arms, I thought my heart had stopped.

_ No. _ Not again.

The bird went down; my remaining men evacuated with me back to Gotham. We’d lost our window.

* * *

Find Harley. Find  _ Har _ ley. Har _ ley _ , Harley Quinn, Har _ leen _ Quin _ zel _ . Had she made it out of Midway?

“I don’t know, but I’ll put word out to look,” my second said. I had said that last sentence out loud, apparently.

Harley didn’t have the phone anymore, I had no way to let her know I was coming for her. I went back to the original  _ plans _ for breaking her out of the blacksite - we’d have to sneak in and make our own exits from the prison, and make  _ arrangements _ for a distraction.

My second got his hands on blueprints for the facility, and replaced the men we’d lost in Midway. I arranged to pay off Harley’s guards for planned day of the escape, and to distract the government and other prison guards from her cell. 

We went in like a SWAT team, one of my explosives  _ experts _ blowing a hole in the back wall of Harley’s cage. I followed my men leisurely as they secured the room, then took control to use a grinder to break the bar lock on her cell. When the sparks stopped and the metal bars cooled, I let one of my minions kick the door open. 

Harley was gorgeous, confused and angry at the same time, looking like she wanted nothing better than to go to town on all of these apparently strange men. When she stood and assumed a martial arts stance, I knew I had to reveal myself.

I pulled the gas mask off my face. “So you missed me, doll?” I asked her.

Her face lit up in a grin so bright it could outshine the gold I knew she’d been wearing once we got back to Gotham.

“More than you’ll know, Mistah J,” she chirped back to me. I grinned at her and she jumped at me to wrap arms around my neck.

“Let’s blow this joint,” I said. My men maintained the perimeter as we walked out of the blacksite.

I didn’t let her out of my apartment for three days, and out of my sight for a week, after retrieving her. In the ten years we’d been together, this had been the longest we’d been without the other, and it had been  _ hell _ on us both.

No more.


End file.
